{"id":8606,"date":"2020-06-10T04:00:52","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T08:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.litespeedtech.com\/?p=8606"},"modified":"2020-06-10T04:00:52","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T08:00:52","slug":"wpw-the-beginners-guide-to-litespeed-cache-for-wordpress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lswp.store\/index.php\/2020\/06\/10\/wpw-the-beginners-guide-to-litespeed-cache-for-wordpress\/","title":{"rendered":"WpW: The Beginner’s Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WordPress<\/p>\n

Welcome to another installment of WordPress Wednesday<\/a>!
\nToday’s Topic:\u00a0Beginner’s Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress<\/strong><\/p>\n

Disclaimer<\/strong>: The information contained in this post is accurate for LSCWP v5.5 [release log<\/a>]. If you are using a newer version of the plugin, some details may have changed. Please refer to our documentation<\/a> for the latest!<\/em><\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve downloaded the LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress plugin, installed it, and activated it. Now what?<\/p>\n

Some people are invigorated by the site of all of those settings tabs and are eager to jump right in, while others find all of the options overwhelming, and are paralyzed with indecision.<\/p>\n

Well, if you are part of the latter camp, you\u2019ve come to the right place. Today we are going to talk about setting up LSCWP simply and easily.<\/strong> We\u2019ll go over the things you must know in order to successfully use the plugin, and tell you which settings you can safely ignore.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve installed and activated LSCache for WordPress. Now what?<\/h2>\n

\"Beginner's<\/p>\n

LSCWP essentially has two purposes: that of a full-page cache for your site\u2019s dynamically-generated pages, and that of a site-optimization plugin. Most people who install LSCache do so for the caching functions, and the rest is just the icing on the cake.<\/p>\n

You are free to enable the caching functions and ignore everything else.<\/em><\/p>\n

Upon activation, you\u2019ll find that caching is enabled, but everything else is disabled. If you navigate to LiteSpeed Cache > Cache > Cache<\/strong> you will see that Enable Cache<\/strong> is set to ON<\/code>.<\/p>\n

You could stop right there, never configure another setting, and the plugin would probably cache your site very nicely. We specifically chose the default settings to work with the majority of sites right out of the box.<\/p>\n

TL;DR: This is a very long post, but that\u2019s only because I set out to explain every single basic setting for you. In the event that you want to tweak things a bit, it doesn\u2019t hurt to have a rudimentary understanding of these things. There\u2019s no need to read it now, though! Use the default settings, bookmark the version of this post that exists in the documentation<\/a> (which we will keep updated through each plugin version), and check it when you need the reference.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Still reading? Ok! Let\u2019s look at the first four tabs in the Cache section, and see what they do. These are the most basic settings for your cache.<\/p>\n

Beginner’s Guide to LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress<\/h2>\n

\"LiteSpeed<\/p>\n

Tip: This is a high-level overview. For a detailed explanations of each setting on each tab of the Cache section, please see the Screen-by-Screen documentation<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cache Tab<\/h3>\n

The first option on the Cache<\/strong> tab turns the caching functionality on and off. The remaining settings allow you to decide what types of content will be cached. By default, everything is enabled. If you don\u2019t know what these settings do, it\u2019s best to leave them set to their defaults.<\/p>\n

TTL Tab<\/h3>\n

TTL stands for \u201cTime to Live\u201d and it refers to the number of seconds a page can remain in cache before it is considered stale. Once a page reaches its TTL, it is purged from cache. We\u2019ve chosen default TTLs that should work for most sites, but you are free to change them.<\/p>\n

If you would like a deeper understanding of how content is cached and purged, take a look at this blog post<\/a>. It\u2019s written at a high-level, so you can get the gist without knowing a lot of jargon.<\/p>\n

Purge Tab<\/h3>\n

There are sometimes situations where pages should be purged before their natural expiration. This section allows you to define the rules for that behavior. The default selections should work for most sites, but you can change them if you need to.<\/p>\n

Example<\/h4>\n

If you write a new post, tag it \u201cbrownies,\u201d and publish it in the \u201crecipes\u201d category, several pages will change: the home page, the recipes category archive page, the brownies tag archive page, your author archive page, and probably some other pages, depending on your theme.<\/p>\n

All of the affected pages will need to be purged in order to avoid serving stale content. These settings give you an opportunity to adjust the rules to fit what is needed by your site.<\/p>\n

Excludes Tab<\/h3>\n

You may have pages that you don\u2019t want cached at all. These options allow you to exclude specific parts of your site from being cached. Again, for most sites, there will be no need to change these settings. They are provided to allow you to make custom exceptions to the cache rules.<\/p>\n

The Other Cache Tabs<\/h2>\n

The rest of the Cache tabs (four or five, depending on whether you have WooCommerce enabled) cover more advanced types of caching. We cover these in-depth in the Screen-by-Screen Cache section documentation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"LiteSpeed<\/p>\n

ESI<\/h3>\n

\u201cEdge Side Includes\u201d (ESI) is a method through which you can \u201cpunch holes\u201d in public content, and fill them with private or uncached content. ESI is useful for things like shopping cart widgets and personalized greetings, but we’ve left it disabled by default. Go in-depth here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Object<\/h3>\n

The settings on this tab allow you to control an external object cache (Memcached, LSMCD, or Redis). The server admin needs to have previously enabled and configured this external cache.<\/p>\n

Browser<\/h3>\n

Browser cache is a client-level cache for static files. With browser caching enabled, static files (like images) are stored locally on the user’s device the first time they are requested. After that, the content is pulled from their local storage until the browser cache expires. The settings on this tab control the browser cache.<\/p>\n

Advanced<\/h3>\n

As you might guess from the name of this tab, it\u2019s aimed at more experienced users. You are not likely to need this tab, unless you have some kind of conflict with another cache plugin.<\/p>\n

WooCommerce<\/h3>\n

LSCache is compatible with WooCommerce. If you have WooCommerce enabled, this tab will appear, and will allow you to configure settings related to caching shop content.<\/p>\n

Other Plugin Sections<\/h2>\n

There are many more sections to explore in the LSCache plugin. Each of these is documented in much greater detail in the docs Screen-by-Screen section<\/a>. I’ve provided links to each section in the descriptions below.<\/p>\n

\"LiteSpeed<\/p>\n

Dashboard<\/h3>\n

The LiteSpeed Cache Dashboard allows you to see the status of all of your LSCache and QUIC.cloud services (Image Optimization, Critical CSS Generation, Low-Quality Image Placeholders, Cache Crawler, etc.) at a glance. You can also check your page load time and your page speed score. Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

General<\/h3>\n

The settings in this section control your usage of QUIC.cloud services, the ability to auto upgrade the plugin, and which messages you want to have displayed on the dashboard. Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CDN<\/h3>\n

This section allows you to configure your Content Delivery Network for use with WordPress. If you don’t use a CDN, don\u2019t worry about it. We’ve left CDN support disabled by default. Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Image Optimization<\/h3>\n

LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress provides the ability to optimize your images, making them smaller, and faster to transmit. This is done through a QUIC.cloud service and can be controlled in this section of the plugin. Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Page Optimization<\/h3>\n

There are several non-cache measures you can take to speed up your WordPress site, and many of them are supported in this tab. CSS and Javascript minification and combination, HTTP\/2 push, asynchronous and deferred load\u2026 if you don\u2019t know what these things mean, don\u2019t worry. We’ve left them disabled by default. Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Database<\/h3>\n

This section allows you to optimize your WordPress database. Database optimization is a useful tool when it comes to speeding up your site. LSCWP’s DB Optimizer gives you an easy way to execute some of these tasks in your WordPress database. Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Crawler<\/h3>\n

We’ve disabled the crawler by default. When it\u2019s active, it travels your site, refreshing any pages that may have expired from the cache. Crawling can be a resource-intensive process, and not all hosting providers will allow its use. If your hosting provider does allow crawling, it\u2019s a nice way to keep your cache fresh. Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Toolbox<\/h3>\n

When you need to manually purge the cache, export your site settings, or debug an issue, you’ll find the means in the Toolbox section. Probably the most useful thing you will find here is the Environment Report. If you are having a problem and LiteSpeed support asks for your Report Number, this<\/a> is where you would go to get it. Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Watch the Video<\/h2>\n